The Horse Whisperer

When she woke it was morning. They had slept late. Outside it was raining even harder. Mount Rushmore and its stone faces were hidden in swirling cloud that the woman in reception said wasn't going to clear. Not far away, she said, there was another mountain carving they could maybe get a glimpse of, a giant figure of Crazy Horse.

'Thanks,' said A

Increasingly the pickups and trucks they saw were driven by men in cowboy hats. Some touched their brims or lifted a hand in grave salute. As they went by, the sun made rainbows in the plumes of their tail-spray.

It was late afternoon when they crossed into Montana. But A

She wanted to park but nowhere seemed right. There was a massive casino standing on its own and as she looked, its neon sign flickered on, red and lurid in the fading light. She drove on up a hill, past a cafe and a low straggle of stores with a dirt parking strip in front. Two Indians with long black hair and feathers in their high-crowned cowboy hats stood beside a battered pickup, watching the Lariat and trailer approach. Something in their gaze unsettled her and she kept on up the hill, took a right turn and stopped. She switched off the ignition and for a while sat very still. She could sense Grace behind her, watching. The girl's voice, when at last she spoke, was cautious.

'What's going on?'

'What?' A

'It's closed. Look.'

There was a sign along the road that said National Monument, Little Bighorn Battlefield. Grace was right. According to the opening hours it gave, the place had closed an hour ago. It made A

'How long is this going to go on, Grace?'

'What?'

'You know what I mean. How long is it going to go on?'

There was a long pause. A

'Hmm? I mean, is this it now?' A

Grace was looking down, fiddling with her Walkman. She shrugged again.

'I du

'Do you want us to turn around and go back home?' Grace gave a bitter little laugh.

'Well, do you?'

Grace lifted her eyes and looked sideways out of the window, trying to seem nonchalant, but A

'Because if that's what you want—'

Suddenly Grace turned on her, her face savage and distorted. The tears were ru

'What the hell do you care!' she screamed. 'You decide! You always do! You pretend you care what other people want but you don't, it's just bullshit!'

'Grace,' A

'Don't! Just leave me alone!'

A

On this hillside, on a June day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer and more than two hundred soldiers were cut to pieces by those they had sought to slaughter. Their names were etched in the stone. A

It would later strike her as strange that she should have come here by chance. Whether some other random place would have brought forth the tears she'd stemmed for so long, she never would know. The monument was a kind of cruel anomaly, honoring as it did the agents of genocide while the countless graves of those they had butchered elsewhere lay forever unmarked. But the sense of suffering here and the presence of so many ghosts transcended all detail. It was simply a fitting place for tears. And A

All her life she had lived where she didn't belong. America wasn't her home. And nor, when she went there now, was England. In each country they treated her as if she came from the other. The truth was, she came from nowhere. She had no home. Not since her father died. She was rootless, tribeless, adrift.

Once this had seemed her greatest strength. She had a way of tapping into things. She could seamlessly adapt, insinuate herself into any group, any culture or situation. She knew instinctively what was required, who you needed to know, what you had to do to win. And in her work, which had so long obsessed her, this gift had helped her win all that was worth wi

In the past three months she had been the strong one, fooling herself that it was what Grace needed. The fact was, she knew no other way to react. Having lost all co

A

'Ma'am?'

It was a park ranger. He had a flashlight, but kept its beam tactfully away from her face.

'You okay there ma'am?'

A

'Yes. Thank you,' she said. 'I'm fine.' She got up.

'Your daughter was getting kind of worried down there.'

'Yes, I'm sorry. I'm going now.'

He tipped his hat as she went. 'Night ma'am. You go safely now.'

She walked back down to the car, aware he was watching. Grace was asleep, or perhaps she was only pretending to be. A